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How Homeschooling Made Me a Reader

Growing up, I had an eclectic education: public school, private school, and home school. Despite that, when people ask me about my pre-college background, my simplest answer is that I was “homeschooled.”  I can’t help but think that it has to do with my self-identification, first and foremost, as a reader.  Being a bookworm is so much a part me that I can’t even imagine who I’d be without my love of reading.  Not only would I have missed out on several life-changing academic and professional experiences, I would have an inner landscape completely void of important characters and stories which have permanently shaped my personality and outlook on life.  And do you know what? Without homeschooling, I’m pretty sure that I wouldn’t have become a reader.

Because homeschooling has shaped my life in this way, I want to share my story with you. I hope – if you are a homeschooling parent or are considering becoming one– that this will remind you that every little thing you do to personalize your child’s academic experience can make a huge impact.

 

You see, when I first started public school, I was immediately labeled as a “nonreader.”  In addition to being the youngest kid in my class, I also struggled with severe distraction and disorganization. These symptoms (part of my official diagnosis of ADD) have been something that I have had to learn to cope with over the years. As an adult, I work around it. As a kindergartener, however, I didn’t really have any coping mechanisms in place yet.  I remember feeling so humiliated when I was told I needed to go with a special group after lunch to take a slower approach to reading. I was ashamed at being publicly singled out and asked to read one-on-one when the other kids were playing. I realized these strategies are intended to be helpful, and they often are. However, for me, I was too embarrassed to pay attention.  At the same time, I was disinterested in the stories and material that we were asked to read, not because I couldn’t decode them, just because I thought a lot of them were pretty boring. I still remember sitting with the teacher’s assistant at a table, her face lined with frustration as she urged me to continue reading this incredibly dull story about a dog on a hill. Meanwhile, I was more interested, and distracted by, what was happening  around me in the classroom.

At the end of the year, it was decided that I needed to repeat the grade in order to give me time to catch up with my peers. It wasn’t a huge deal to my parents or teachers, especially since I had started school early, anyway. However, it was a huge deal to me. The fact that this is the first time I’ve really told anyone about that probably indicates the extent to which it embarrassed me.  Suffice it to say that, at school, reading developed an association with shame as well as boredom. At home was a different story, though.

Both my parents were big readers. My dad, even though he worked full time, read almost a book a day. My mom was both a reader and a writer. Our house was full of novels.  One week when I was sick and home from school, my mom introduced me to one of L. Frank Baum’s “Oz books,” (Ozma of Oz). We read the entire thing; it was amazing! And even crazier, I realized I could read it by myself. This wasn’t some picture book about a dog on a hill, either: it was lengthy– a chapter book. I loved the story, and I felt a tiny bit of confidence start to bloom, too.  I can peg that experience as the moment when I officially caught the reading bug; maybe it’s also the moment when my mom decided that we would give homeschooling a try.

We started homeschooling the following year, and even though I know we covered all the basic subjects of early elementary school, what really sticks out to me was the emphasis on reading. We read Laura Ingalls Wilder books that year (Little House on the Prairie, etc) and incorporated the stories into history, where I learned about pioneering and homesteading.  For “art,” my mom and I built a miniature log cabin, talking about the characters in the stories and features of their own cabin. That year of my life marked an important turning point for me, one in which I went from avoiding books to gobbling them up.

In 3rd-5th grades, when I returned to public school, I was no longer labeled a “non-reader,” but a “super student,” awarded for being one of the top 10 readers at my school. However, I remember being very frustrated on more than one occasion when I visited the school library. Though all of the books in the library were appropriate content-wise, the librarian wouldn’t let me check out books that were more than two years above my grade.  I didn’t understand it, and it made me upset. However, I continued to go to the public library weekly with my parents, who let me read classics, regardless of whether or not they were “above my grade level.” Though I was successful in public school, even placed in the “gifted” class (again, feeling singled out), I still felt shame over the thought that I’d been “held back” as a very young child. It gave me the feeling that any success I experienced hadn’t been fairly earned, somehow.

I went back to homeschooling through middle school. My mom taught me how to write research papers, and I continued devouring “big books” and learning how to work independently.  Though it was working well for us,  I switched over to a “university model” private, Christian school in 9th grade. It was similar to a homeschool co-op in that it met for three days of classes with the rest of the days reserved for independent study at home.  I was nervous because I had heard it was a difficult school, and I had to take several standardized tests before I could be allowed in. However, when I got my scores back, I was shocked to find that – once again – I had made a major academic leap while homeschooling. Though I was a “9th grader,” I tested as a 12th grader! I skipped ahead a grade, and even though it might sound silly,  I was finallyable to let go of the shame I’d been carrying since I was told that I needed to repeat a grade when I was five.  In the subsequent years, I have continued to learn to set labels and restrictions aside and focus instead on doing the best that can do. I have found also that most of my academic success has come from my love of reading.

The knowledge that I am a reader and that I do love to learn has since helped me succeed in college and (now) in graduate school. None of that would have ever happened if my parents hadn’t taught me how to love books, or if homeschooling hadn’t shown me that labels like “ADD” and “nonreader,” can be overcome. There are plenty of great teachers in the public school system, and there are so many wonderful private schools, too. However, I know that for me to become a reader, I needed a special kind of personal attention that didn’t feel like a label or being singled out.  I surpassed my grade level only when that grade level was irrelevant, when I could set the bar for myself and work at my own pace. Through homeschooling, I realized that reading isn’t just about deciphering sounds from letters on a page, but an exciting way to connect to the world around you. I honestly believe that grasping that concept is the gateway to all learning. Once you are a reader, you become a learner, and once you become a learner, you can do anything you set your mind on doing.

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